1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to technology for detecting a service providing device that provides a service corresponding to content over a network.
Priority is claimed on Japanese Patent Application No. 2012-240510, filed on Oct. 31, 2012, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of Related Art
Recently, devices that have a network function and reproduce images or sound that can be shared over a network have begun to spread. Since image or audio data has a large amount of data, communication of such data is likely to occupy a bandwidth. Therefore, performing such data communication through an access point may cause, for example, a decrease in a communication rate, with respect to communication performed by another device connected to the access point. Accordingly, it is ideal to configure the network with only devices performing this data communication and to perform direct communication between the devices.
Given the above circumstances, a method in which a wireless LAN is set between specific communication partners and an image or sound is shared is considered. For example, a Wi-Fi Direct (Wi-Fi Peer-to-Peer (P2P)) specification is known as a method of configuring a wireless LAN network between specific devices.
In a home, a device such as a TV or an audio device is fixed at a specific location. According to a procedure of Wi-Fi Direct, in order to connect with the device according to a purpose, it is necessary for a user to perform a series of operations at an installation location of the device. Therefore, in Wi-Fi Direct, it is difficult to reliably detect the presence of the communication partner and to implement a simple network connection according to a purpose.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2012-129916 discloses a method of communicating that uses a wireless communication system having no directivity such as Wi-Fi to specify a partner to be communicated with. In this method, a terminal that searches for another terminal searches for the other terminal while a transmission output of its communication interface is adjusted and determines the communication partner.